Eating Disorders and my experience with them.

I figure since most of you know anyways, I mind as well blog about it because I've been trying to think of something to blog about for a while now. I have been suffering from an eating disorder for about three years. I'm proud to say that I believe I have fully recovered from it.

It started in the summer between 6th and 7th grade. Previous to the summer, in elementary school I was picked on a lot. 5th grade was the worst year. It was mostly the 6th graders that picked on me about being overweight. I was afraid of telling someone about it because I knew they would get mad at me for telling on them, and pick on me even worse. Anyways, so I had low self esteem because of that, and it's not like I didn't already know how I looked anyways. So during the summer, I got really sick and the doctors didn't know what I had. They thought I had mono, but the tests came out negative so they put me on an antibiotic, sent me home and hoped that would work.

So I took the antibiotic, as directed by my doctor, but it made me feel worse. I was nauseous, I couldn't eat anything because it made me feel even more nauseous, causing me to lose weight at a fast pace. Finally, after about a month or so, my parents took me back to the doctors and the doctor told me that whatever I had in the beginning of the summer was gone, and that I needed to stop taking the antibiotic. At that point, I had lost about 20 pounds and was getting a whole bunch of compliments from family members and friends. So instead of throwing the medicen away, I kept taking them until they were gone. When they were gone, I continued to starve myself until I started passing out all the time.

I didn't tell my parents about the passing out until one day, about a month or two into seventh grade, I was in my room doing my homework when I decided that I needed help with it so I got up and then blacked out and hit my head on the end of my bed and hit my knee on the wall, and made a loud noise. My mom heard it, and came upstairs to see what had happened. At that point, I was standing up and really confused and still really dizzy. My mom asked me why I fainted and I told her I didn't know, and she immediately called the doctors and made an appointment so we could find out. I refused to admit to my doctor and mom that I starved myself, but they made me see a nutritionist anyways. At that point I had lost about an additional 10 to 15 pounds. Everyone was really worried about me so I started to yo-yo diet. Yo-yo dieting is when you eat for one day, but then starve yourself for the next couple of days or vise versa. So I did this for the next year or so, until it was pretty stable, I was eating pretty much every day but would have a day or two where I wouldn't eat much.

At the end(ish) of 8th grade, I weighed myself for the first time in about a half a year. I had gained a little weight, and it triggered me to start up with my eating disorder again, but I started purging too. When the summer came, I was really bad. I was purging a lot, I was fasting, and I was toying with the idea of excessive exercise. When 9th grade started, I decided that I wanted to get better, I was scaring myself. I started talking to my therapist about it, and I started talking to Colin, a counselor at my school. I was still purging, but I was slowly getting better. In the middle of September, I was at a friend's house and freaked out about something I ate, so like always, I decided I would make myself throw up. So, I did, but this time there was blood. I knew that many bulimics have died from their esophagus tearing, and while they are asleep, it bleeding and the person chokes on their blood. I pretty much scared myself shitless, and decided that if I woke up the next morning, I would never purge again. Obviously, I woke up the next morning, and I never purged again (with the acception of one time I had a lapse).

I have been healthy for 7 months. I have found that talking with my therapist, and Colin, is a really big help. I also found support in my friends. I don't know what I would do without them sometimes, they mean the world to me. I am a stronger person now than I ever was, and I couldn't do it on my own. I am lucky to have so many understanding and supportive friends. I don't ever want to go back to the way I was, and I don't think I ever will.